


The Earring Diversion

by lovesrain44



Category: Dark Shadows (1966)
Genre: Angst, Corporal Punishment, Dark, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-23
Updated: 2011-10-23
Packaged: 2017-10-24 21:40:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/268183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovesrain44/pseuds/lovesrain44
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Willie has secretly given Josette's earrings to Maggie Evans, because he's in love with her. Only trouble is, Barnabas knows they're missing, but hasn't been able to figure out where they've gone. And then he sees Maggie in the street. Trouble ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Earring Diversion

Willie stood outside on the street, waiting in the shade of the awning, the string from the shoebox he was holding for Barnabas cutting into his fingers. He imagined that, somewhere inside the building, Barnabas was almost done with his fitting for his latest double-breasted suit.

Shouldn't be too long now.

At least the sun was going down, so it wouldn't be quite so hot, and they could both go home and rest in the cool bower of the Old House. Although the Old House wasn't very peaceful these days, what with Adam howling in the basement all day long, and Julia fretting about her research and complaining about the heat, it was much better than standing around on a street corner waiting for a man who was as particular about the cut of his jacket as he was about the orderliness of his schedule. Everything just so. And having everything just so took a very long time.

From behind him, he heard the clip of a light footstep, and he turned to find Maggie Evans walking towards him. Of course, she wasn't exactly walking towards him in particular, but just for a brief moment, he allowed himself to imagine that it was he himself she was coming to see. That it was Willie for whom she was wearing a leg-revealing, cream-colored dress that floated around her like butterfly wings. Her hair was tied back in that way it often was, half off her face, half-trailing across her shoulders.

"Hello, Willie," she said, the smile in her voice as well as in her face. "I don't often see you downtown like this, what a pleasant surprise."

The pleasure is all mine.

But he kept that thought to himself as he let his gaze wander a bit, unattended, his own smile broadening in response. "You look swell, Maggie," he said. "You goin' out to a party or somethin'?"

With a little laugh that squirreled its way unexpectedly into his insides and tickled around, she ducked her head, and then looked up at him through her lashes. She was enchanting.

"Why, thank you, Willie, you're sweet. No, actually I'm supposed to meet Joe down here. We're going to try out a new restaurant."

"Joe." With one breath he allowed what he thought of that idea to escape him, but at Maggie's wrinkled brow, he forced a smile, not so broad this time, and nodded, as if agreeing with her. "Sure, a new restaurant, with you looking so pretty and all, that'd be nice, but he should take you somewhere where you can show off that great dress you have on. 'Stead of hiding it behind a table."

She looked at him, raising her head, her expression as if she were thinking something totally new. "Dancing, yes, that would be fun."

He remembered this look on her face from when she'd visited the Old House, sort of dreamy and determined all at once. The hairs on the back of his neck were rising up when she suddenly shook her head, tossing her dark hair across the pale shimmer of her dress. "But who am I kidding? Joe says that dancing makes him feel like a fool, and he won't take me."

Willie caught her eyes with his, almost as easy as breathing, and there was something so soft there as she looked back at him.

I'd take you dancing, Maggie, and they could hang me for a fool and I wouldn't care.

But he didn't say it. To say it was to invite the refusal that would most assuredly follow. But he thought it. And in her eyes he could see that she knew this.

One hand, gentle and light, came up to touch the fingers that were numb from the shoebox string.

"You're sweet Willie, but I couldn't go dancing anyway."

"Oh?" he asked, brow wrinkling in concern. "Well, why not? You're not sick or anything, are ya?"

Another little laugh, this time with a toss of her head, and as she opened her mouth to speak, Willie caught the deep green and white sparkle beneath the curtain of her hair.

"No," she said, pushing the hair back from one side of her face, almost hesitantly, as if she were not sure whether or not what she was about to do was bragging. "But these earrings, unlike the dress, weren't made for dancing. They were made to be sitting very, very still."

It was Josette's earrings she was wearing, and they looked better on her than he ever thought they would. In the light of the Old House when she'd visited him that one time, they'd looked very pretty, full of sparkles in the candlelight. But she must have cleaned them up some, or maybe it was the falling darkness of twilight, but the streetlight caught the eye of the emerald and spun it out like a wave of deep ocean light. Diamond flashes dotted the wave, like foam coming up phosphorescent in the growing darkness. Or maybe it was her eyes setting off the stones, so dark brown, as if they were the very earth that the stones had come from.

He shook his head and backed up, feeling the tingle of anxiety start at the top of his shoulders and work its way down. He struggled to free his fingers from the string to get the blood flowing back through his hand.

"Willie," she asked, letting the hair fall forward again, "are you okay? You look so pale."

"No, I-I--" he stammered, his hands numb around the shoebox as he balanced it in his hands. "No, nothin' I'm fine, but should you, should you be wearing those?"

"Why sure." She smiled at him, brilliant. "Don't you like them on me?" Now the coquette, fishing for a compliment that she knew was hers, one of thousands he would have laid at her feet in a carpet if he dared, but which now, as time sped forward to the moment when Barnabas would come walking out the door of the shop, he couldn't give to her like he would have wanted to.

"Yeah, Maggie, they look great, but maybe you should be going now."

"Well, I'm in no hurry, and I'd like to make sure you're okay. If anything happened to you, if you passed out in the street, Barnabas would be hard pressed to replace you." True to her nature, Maggie's desire for a compliment disappeared in the face of her concern for a fellow human being. Though he didn't dare let himself believe, even for an instant, that her concern marked him as anything special in her eyes. Just then the bell on the shop door behind him made a thin, silvery sound, and he could hear Barnabas wishing the shopkeeper a good evening. Then the door shut and Barnabas appeared in their midst.

"What a pleasure it is to see you again, Miss Evans," said Barnabas, with a little half bow, "and what a charming dress you're wearing. Is there some special occasion of which I should be aware?"

Willie felt his lips grow numb. "She was just going, Barnabas," he began, "'cause she's supposed to meet Joe, and--"

"No," said Maggie, helpfully, "I'm early, actually. I was afraid I couldn't find the place and Joe doesn't like it when I'm late."

I'd wait forever for you.

"You see, Willie," admonished Barnabas, his smile only for Maggie, "there is no need to be rude. And is there a special occasion?"

"No," said Maggie, "not really, just a new restaurant that Joe's been wanting to try."

"But in a dress such as that you should be dancing." Barnabas pretended to be shocked at this, that she would not be dancing, and Maggie ducked her head with blush. To relieve the sudden heat from her face, she lifted her hair with her hands.

Willie was looking at the earrings and not at Barnabas, but he could feel the other man start and then freeze, and knew that Barnabas' lips were thinning in a frown.

"What beautiful earrings," said that voice, oh, so charming as always. "Wherever did you get them?"

Flustered, Maggie dropped her hands and her hair, but such was the presence of fate that one earring still glimmered in the streetlight. "Well, I don't know, actually. They just appeared one day at the cottage."

"They're not from young Haskell?" Surprise lifted Barnabas' voice.

"No," she replied, her eyes flicking between Barnabas and Willie. "Joe could never afford these. They're from an unknown admirer." She wanted them to join in the delicious secret with her, but there was a dark pause as Barnabas took in a long, slow breath.

"A secret admirer," he said, as if turning the words over in his head. "I see." His glanced traveled for an instant to Willie and then back to Maggie as if he'd forgotten that Willie was even there. "Indeed, they suit you admirably well, as if they'd been made with you in mind."

Willie's stomach plunged. Barnabas recognized them for what they were, and any half-formed plan that he'd had to pretend that they looked an awful lot like Josette's earrings, but couldn't possibly be them was quickly dismissed. The increasing twilight, which had been growing pleasantly cooler, was now a deep freeze.

"Oh," said Maggie, suddenly, looking over both their shoulders, "there's Joe now, he'll be so pleased that I'm not late."

"I'll bid you goodnight, then, Miss Evans, and an enjoyable evening."

"Thank you Barnabas," she said in return, "goodnight. And goodnight, Willie," she added, her smile sending out a warmth that did not quite reach him.

When Willie did not respond, Barnabas touched his arm. "Say goodnight, Willie, we should be going home ourselves."

"Goodnight, Maggie," Willie said, his own voice echoing and unpleasant in his ears.

As she passed them on their way to Joe, Willie caught the edge of the scent she was wearing. Not jasmine, no, not tonight, not when she was going out with Joe, but instead the gentle scent that reminded him of the beach. Of waves coming in on soothing curls. Of a hot day cooled by a breeze off the water. All of this in a second, his eyes closed, the shoebox weightless in his hands, and Barnabas far, far away.

"Willie."

His eyes snapped open. Barnabas stood there, in his dark, new suit, eyes like black holes, the frown fully formed. In the street there was not much he could say or do, not with casual passers by as potential witnesses, but his anger roiled up at Willie like lava from a volcano.

"You will bring the car around and then you will drive me home," Barnabas informed him with ice. To anyone else, Barnabas would sound merely tired, or perhaps as if he had a headache, but Willie knew better. The cold, formal tones hid the darkness within, hid the anger and the temper, and Willie found that he was shaking.

"What's the matter, Barnabas?" he began, but Barnabas grabbed his arm hard, and then released him.

"We'll discuss this at the Old House, not here in the street. Now go get the car."

Willie hurried off to the car park, slipping curbside in record time, as if that would help assuage Barnabas' anger, though he knew it wouldn't. His palms were sweaty on the steering wheel as Barnabas slipped into the back seat and slammed the door. He drove as carefully as he could, but he could feel Barnabas' eyes on him the whole time, that scowl firmly in place, and he felt as though every error, every sloppy turn, or fumbled shift was caught and measured. Barnabas knew a whole lot more about cars now and would know when one was being badly driven.

At the last crossroads before the turnoff to Collinwood, Willie tried again.

"I-I--"

"I said when we get to the Old House. Until then you will hold your tongue, is that understood?"

Willie nodded, feeling the anxiety in him rise as the Old House appeared from behind the trees. Parking the car alongside the porch, he turned off the engine and bent his head, looking at Barnabas out of the corner of his eye.

"Go into the kitchen and wait for me there."

Nodding again, he got out of the car and went in the side door, through the sun porch, and stood in the kitchen. Memories assailed him, not suddenly, not all at once, but one by one. Like water coming through a leak, like a pump gushing rust, memories of the kitchen table, and him bent over it. When had that happened? Why did the thought of it make him lightheaded? Why did the image of Barnabas standing over him, something in his hand, held high, send the blood rushing from his face, rushing to his stomach to churn there? Barnabas would never hurt him, would he?

Barnabas would never find out that he'd given the earrings to Maggie, she could never tell him because she didn't know who'd given them to her. And Willie would never tell. Nothing Barnabas could do could make him tell. Barnabas would understand that sometimes these things just happened. He'd believe that Adam had taken the earrings out of the house and that somehow, by some odd miracle, they'd ended up with Maggie Evans. That's how it would work.

His mind, whirling, tried to rid itself of other images, Barnabas' large hand sending him spinning against a wall, blood on his lip, something hot holding him down. Something even hotter whistling through the air, slamming into him, and crumpling his legs beneath him.

He shook his head.

That was never Barnabas.

Was it?

He heard the back door open, and like a shot from a cannon, he spun on his heels and sprinted down the hallway towards the stairs.

"Willie!" roared Barnabas, "come back here!"

Of course, it wasn't, could never be, Barnabas was his friend, Barnabas had taken him out of Windcliffe, had given him a job, Barnabas would never do anything so mean to him. But his legs told him otherwise as they took up the stairs two, three at a time, bounding up them, wings on his feet, and his eyes, insisting it was otherwise, looking for a place to hide. What part of him was left then, that truly believed that Barnabas wouldn't hurt him? Surely there was some part of him that wanted to go downstairs and find out just exactly Barnabas wanted to talk to him about?

Only he couldn't find it, find that part that believed in that dream, not now, not with the sound of footsteps in the downstairs hall, not with the tread on the stairs, imposingly loud.

"Willie!"

Willie turned down the hallway, towards the rooms that had not been finished up, and thinking of that, he could remember working so hard on some of them, taking pride in the shine of the wood and the steadiness of the panels, and yet, since his return from the institution, why had he not taken up those tasks again? Where were his tools, his striped apron, his floorplans of the way the Old House once stood? Where was the Willie who had actually done that kind of work?

There were too many questions for which he had no answers, and the darkness loomed unbelievably welcome as he opened a door at random and shut it behind him. He didn't know what was in the room, old curtains hid the moon, but he could smell the unused smell of dusty wood and rotting plaster.

Needs wood oil.

He fell to his knees and crawled towards the darkest part of the room.

A good cleaning and then a layer or two of wood oil, and then probably the wallpaper needs to be taken down, it always does, but I'll have to take the paneling off first--

"WILLIE!! You will come here this INSTANT!"

As the loudness echoed and faded in the hallway, Willie curled down as tight as he could behind something dark and bulky. He'd managed to crawl under something as well, and so he was covered from three sides. He hoped his feet weren't sticking out.

Doors were opened and slammed shut. Then silence. Then the smell of burning wax in the dank air. More doors, more slamming. Coming closer. The door to the room he was in opened. Willie shut his eyes and held his breath. To his amazement the door slammed shut, and he heard another one being opened. There were a lot of doors in the Old House; Barnabas could look for him all night and never find him. He wondered why he'd never thought of this before; it was a very clever trick.

Then there was silence. And a voice from the hallway.

"I know you are in one of these rooms, Willie, and if you force me to hunt you down, I will do so, but you will regret it, I promise you."

The voice was very calm, and Willie wondered why he should be more afraid of it that the shouting. The shouting was certainly scarier, not at all like the Barnabas he knew. But the quiet voice, that was also Barnabas, and Willie found he could picture it exactly. Barnabas standing in the hall, a candle in one hand, the other clenched in a fist at his side. His voice might be quiet, almost gentle, but the rage was present in the trembling fist and the dark lights in his eyes. And fear, like an old friend, one Willie'd been lonesome for all this time, kicked in.

He'd stolen those valuable earrings, those earrings whose real worth was because of the fact that they'd once belonged to Josette, whom Barnabas loved more than anything in the world. The memory of what had happened was suddenly very clear. He'd stolen them and given them to Maggie Evans, whom Barnabas had also once loved, but who had outsmarted him and escaped his unwelcome attentions. That memory was suddenly clear, too. Both women had worn those earrings; both women were now beyond Barnabas' reach. Not only that, but Maggie now thought a secret admirer had given them to her, and was flattered by this mysterious attention. A secret admirer who was one, Willie Loomis.

How in hell had he expected that he'd get away with it?

As he clenched the back of his neck with both hands, he realized that his neck was wet with sweat and that his hands were slipping off. His stomach was boiling with acid. The dust from the floor rose into his lungs and he struggled not to cough. Memories, all of them clear as crystal, of beatings over the kitchen table, tumbled into his brain, fitting into their proper place with a click, and he felt like ice all over. Only it was the click of the door handle being turned and the tongue of the latch slipping out of its groove that he heard. Footsteps, and he held so still that he could actually hear the hiss of wax as it burned. The footsteps stopped and the rustle of cloth as the candle was held high sounded in the still room. Willie held very, very still.

"I know you're in here, Willie, I see your marks in the dust."

The dust. The damn dust. In his lungs, under his nails, rotting the wood and eating away at the carpet. But maybe Barnabas didn't mean it, maybe he was just testing the darkness to see if Willie was there. He struggled to hold in a cough that threatened to turn into a whimper. Sweat slid down into his eye. If Barnabas found him, Barnabas was going to hurt him. It was all he knew, all he could think about as he tightened himself even smaller.

Three quick steps and the standing wood that he was hiding behind was pushed aside, where it fell to the floor with a loud, sharp bang, sending up round balls of dust. His eyes were still closed, but he could feel the heat of the candle as it was held close to him.

"I told you you would regret it if I had to hunt you down, and you will, I assure you." The voice was steady in the darkness behind his eyes, steady and furious.

A hand reached for him and grabbed him, taking handfuls of shirt and pulling him out from his hiding place. He let it for a minute, till he could get his legs under him, then, opening his eyes and taking in Barnabas' white, angry face, he scuttled on all fours, out of Barnabas' grip, slipping past the vampire's surprise until he reached the doorway, where he stood bolt upright and sprinted down the hallway towards his own room.

His thought was to go into his room and bar the door, and he retained this idea even as he heard the quick, sharp footsteps in the hallway behind him. Coming closer as he tried to slam the door shut, but a large hand curved around the edge of the door and forced it open, shoving Willie backwards into the room, and what his body had been telling him all along, his mind now chimed in with the truth of the memory. Barnabas had whipped him in the past for his misdeeds, was planning to do so now. Barnabas was angry; Barnabas was not his friend.

He backed all the way to the bed, where the back of his knees hit the edge of it. He steadied himself as Barnabas reached for him, gripping the length of his shoulder with curved fingers.

"I will give you one chance, Willie, and I suggest you take it. Were you the one who took the earrings and gave them to Maggie Evans?"

Willie's mouth fell open at this straightforward question; something in his memory told him that this was not Barnabas' usual manner. "I-uh--"

"Careful," warned Barnabas, shifting closer. "Make sure of your answer before you speak."

His mind was dizzy with his options. If he told the truth, Barnabas would punish him, and maybe even send him back to Windcliffe. If he lied, there was a chance that Barnabas would find out about it anyway, and then he would be even more angry, and the result would be the same. The truth or a lie, and neither option very appealing.

He swallowed, and tried something else. "What earrings, Barnabas?"

Barnabas' eyebrows flew up to his hairline, and his mouth opened in astonishment. "What do you mean, what earrings? The earrings Maggie Evans was wearing this evening."

Willie shook his head slowly, back and forth, keeping his expression as earnest as possible and his eyes on Barnabas. "I saw that dress she was wearing, sure, but I didn't see any earrings."

"She was wearing Josette's earrings," insisted Barnabas, "we both saw them."

Another careful shake of his head.

"We both saw them!" thundered Barnabas.

"Now," said Willie, politely, he thought, "raising your voice to me like that isn't very nice. An' it won't change the facts any either. I didn't see any earrings on Maggie Evans, and nothin' you can say can change that." He nodded to emphasize this, crossing his arms over his chest.

Barnabas stared at him, his eyes narrowing. Willie could almost see the calculations going on in his mind, his face tightening as the moment stretched on.

"You must have seen them," said Barnabas, stern, "when she lifted her hair--"

"She lifted her hair alright," said Willie, shaking his head as if at Barnabas' overactive imagination, "but I didn't see no earrings. Maybe you did," he cast a pitying glance at the other man, "but I didn't." He shrugged, scratching the side of his head with one hand. "Could a' been a trick of the light or something, I dunno-"

"That is enough!" Barnabas took a deep breath, his mouth closing in a firm, hard line. "You will confess that you took those earrings and gave them to Maggie Evans and you will do so this instant. What's more, you will admit that you saw them on her tonight!"

Willie just looked at him.

"You WILL admit it!"

"Sometimes, Barnabas," began Willie, "you see what you want to see and you hear wha-"

The flat of Barnabas' large hand cut off his words with a hot slap to the side of his face. He fell back, astonished, sending his pillow slipping to the floor as he skidded against it. "Barnabas, that wasn't very nice!" This wasn't at all the Barnabas he had remembered at Windcliffe. This was the Barnabas his mind kept insisting was the real one. The mean one.

"I have been nice long enough," said Barnabas, looming over him. "Since your return from Windcliffe you have become more and more difficult to deal with. I'd send you back there this instant, but I have work I need you to do here, and so instead I'm going to punish you."

"Punish me?" asked Willie, his voice becoming a squeak.

"Yes, punish you." Barnabas said this as he turned around and opened the top drawer of Willie's bureau. When he turned back around he held one of Willie's old belts, the black one with the thick braiding. It dangled dangerously in his huge hand.

"Hey, please," the pleading words escaped from him. "Please Barnabas, wait--"

"I did wait," replied Barnabas, "I waited for you to confess the deed, I waited for you to beg for forgiveness, I waited for you to repent what you had done. And what did you do instead?"

Willie looked up at him, mind whirling as he struggled to understand the question.

"You lied to me about what you had done, and then you compounded that lie by pretending you did not see the earrings. Do you know what happens to servants who steal and lie, Willie?"

Willie had to shake his head at this. "No," he replied, his voice small.

"They are beaten," said Barnabas, hitching up the belt around the knuckles of one hand.

"No."

"I'm going to beat you for stealing."

"D-don't."

"And then I'm going to beat you until you confess to the lie."

"No," he said again, his lower lip trembling as he shrank against the brass headboard.

Barnabas doubled the length of the belt and folded it, tucking the tongue and buckle end beneath his palm. Willie watched this with his eyes widening, his breath catching in his throat.

"P-please don't," he gasped, struggling to move back, to move across the bed and away. He made it as far as the other side of the bed when Barnabas reached for him and grabbed his leg, sharply pulling him back, pulling him closer. His shirt slid up and his shoes became tangled in the bedclothes, trapping him.

Hefting the belt with his free hand, Barnabas looked at it as if testing its weight with his eyes. "If you confess it to me, I will only whip you for stealing." He looked back at Willie. "You only have to admit it, that's all I ask." He sounded perfectly reasonable.

"But I didn't do it!" Willie almost wailed, hating the sound of it.

"Is that your last statement on the matter?" asked Barnabas, letting him go, holding the belt stretched between two hands in front of him.

Struggling against the bedclothes, Willie found that he was quite locked in, the wool of the blanket scratching against his bared ribs. His options were the same as before: a lie or the truth. The only difference was that either option ending in a beating instead of Windcliffe.

He took a deep breath, and locked eyes with Barnabas. "But Barnabas," he said, "how could I tell if she was wearing Josette's earrings when I don't even know what they look like?"

He thought it was a pretty good sidestep as he saw Barnabas' face go completely blank. There was no way of getting around it; he was off the hook.

The belt came crashing down along his side before he even had time to realize that Barnabas had lifted it in the first place. And where the belt had landed there was heat, and the deep, vibrating sting that his body recognized immediately. As he started to shake, it was as if his body was saying to him, See, I told you so.

"Hey!" It was a cry of shock, of protest, and it escaped him just as the belt came down again.

"Barnabas, no!"

"You will regret playing the fool, Willie," said Barnabas, clocking back his arm, "just as you will regret stealing from me!"

"B-but, I-I didn't steal nothin', I d-didn't--"

He flung up his arm to deflect the next blow, but it met with his bare ribs instead, circling around, biting him at the edges. Yelping, he squirmed, struggling to get away, when a large, flat hand pressed against the back of his neck, forcing him against the mattress. His howls, as the belt landed repeatedly, cutting into him, were swallowed up whole. He could feel the blood gathering in long hot spots along his back, the fabric of the cloth of his pants vanish as the belt landed on his backside.

His screams felt soundless, and the blankets didn't care as they absorbed the echoes. But inside, a wail of anguish was rising and building with each stroke of the belt against his skin. One lash caught him square against the flat of his hip. Another cupped itself beneath his buttocks. And Barnabas wasn't tiring, wasn't letting up, and this he suddenly remembered too. Barnabas could go all night and not tire, he remembered. Heat formed and thrummed where Barnabas was holding him down, and his skin all over was hotter than a coal fire.

Barely able to breathe, he pushed against the blankets, shoving them away from him, kicking them from his legs. At one point, his leg lashed out and he realized too late that his shoe had met with Barnabas' thigh.

And then suddenly he heard the door open and Julia's astonished voice.

"What is going on in here?" she demanded. "What is all this commotion?"

Willie felt Barnabas pause and turn around. The tail of the belt fell, landing gently against Willie's leg. He tried to get up, but Barnabas shoved him down again, and he was almost glad of this, his face reddening as Barnabas replied, "Willie is being punished."

"Punished," asked the doctor, and Willie could almost imagine her eyes fluttering in her confusion. "Punished? Whatever for?"

"That is my business."

Even Julia knew better than to question Barnabas when he used that tone. "It sounds as if you were killing him," she said anyway. "What are you punishing him with?"

The belt was lifted and Willie could feel the waft of air as it passed by his head. "I am punishing him with this."

"A belt?" She sounded puzzled. "That's Willie's belt."

"Would you rather I used my cane?" replied Barnabas, his voice indicating that this was a very old argument indeed.

"That would most certainly kill him, were I to apply any pressure at all."

There was a pause, and Willie struggled to push himself upright, catching a glimpse of Julia standing at the door, one hand on the handle, the other holding a notebook in her hand.

"Julia, he--"

Her eyes widened as they met his, and then Barnabas shoved his head back down into the mattress.

"Now if you'll leave us, Dr. Hoffman, I need to finish the job at hand."

A quiet moment's reflection and then he heard, "S-sure, Barnabas, if that's what you want. I'll be downstairs if you need me."

She closed the door after her, and the room filled with silence.

"So you strike out at me, Willie?"

There was a moment of silence as Willie, panting, caught his breath and Barnabas' hand lifted from his neck.

"Answer me at once."

"I-I--"

With a single pull, Barnabas hauled him up by his shirt collar, almost ripping it, and pushed him back so that he half lay on his side, the freshly made welts pounding with the pressure of his body against them. Barnabas wasn't even sweating in the heat; he looked as cool and collected as if he'd just been sitting in the shade having an iced tea. Only his eyes looked hot, hot as fire, sparkling like black coal.

"Well?"

He watched Barnabas' lips move as he asked this, and it took him a second to remember the exact question.

"I-I didn't mean to, Barnabas, honest, I--"

"I find that hard to believe."

"I didn't know you was standin' so close, I was just tryin' to get away, to--"

"To get away?" This demanded with arched eyebrows and Willie realized too late that he'd said the wrong thing.

"I couldn't help it," he said, on the verge of moaning, "my foot couldn't stand bein' trapped in the blankets no more, I wasn't tryin' to escape, honest!"

The eyes narrowed until they were mere slits as Barnabas appraised him. Willie's hands found the coolness of the brass headboard, and they circled it, absorbing the iciness of the metal, twisting around the smooth surface. He looked away from Barnabas, concentrating on the brass beneath his palms.

"You have not yet confessed to stealing the earrings."

Willie shook his head, looking only at the mattress beneath him, concentrating only on that.

"You only have to confess it, Willie."

Again he shook his head, ducking his chin down, feeling his shirt rub against his shoulder blades.

"You must and you will!"

The belt came down again and the blows were harder now, stinging and snapping and landing like waves on the rocks, not caring how they landed or where, but only intent upon tearing the rocks apart. With each blow he tried to bite back the cry of pain, of protest, of dismay, but it really did no good. Barnabas was only warming up now.

Then the blows stopped.

"Did you take the earrings and give them to Maggie Evans?" asked the voice that he knew was Barnabas'.

He wanted to say no. He formed his mouth to say no. He even started to shake his head, but a sudden thud along the back of his ribs knocked the air out of his lungs.

"Say it, Willie."

He could only pant.

"Say it: I stole the earrings."

What good would it do to protest now? He was already beaten, and Barnabas already knew this part of the truth. The earrings were missing, and Barnabas suspected him. Adam had never been under suspicion for this, even the turning out of pockets had been a sham, a diversion.

He took a deep breath.

"I--" "That's right: I stole--"

"I stole--" he repeated obediently.

When he paused, there came another slam of the belt, this time along the back of his neck, snapping around to bite his cheek. The sound of the cracking leather in his ear shocked him, and he struggled against the dizziness in his head.

"Say it!" thundered Barnabas.

"I stole the earrings," he said, finally, gasping.

A small stillness hung over him, and he heard Barnabas refold the leather in his hands.

"Now," he said, "I want you to confess that you saw Maggie wearing the earrings tonight."

A strange voice in his head reminded him that Barnabas had warned him that he would be beaten till he confessed to both crimes, and that each was worth a separate beating. His body from the back of his neck to halfway down his thighs was singing with pain that his brain translated into heat. If he didn't confess it now, Barnabas would beat him until he was dead, Barnabas would beat him until the heat consumed him and he became nothing more than a pile of ash on the bed. And he didn't want to become ash; that's what happened to vampires. And ash might not get mistreated, but ash never got to go out. Ash got swept into the trash can and taken to the dump. And, more importantly, ash never had Maggie visit it.

He heard Barnabas raise the belt, heard the movement of cloth and the snap of leather.

"I took 'em, and I gave 'em to her, I took 'em and she's got 'em, okay, Barnabas, okay?"

Half lifting himself on one elbow, he rolled back to look into Barnabas' face. Sweat was drying on the back of Willie's neck, itching as it did so, and the pounding of the weals along his ribs almost made him sick. But he had to make sure that it was okay. He wanted his Barnabas back, not this other one, the one that looked at him with death's dark eyes, the one that held the belt so ready in one hand. He wanted the Barnabas that spoke softly to him and told him he was welcome in the Old House. The Barnabas that had gotten him out of Windcliffe, the one that was his friend.

"Okay, Barnabas?" he asked.

Giant hands lifted him and shoved him hard against the wall. Barnabas was on the bed, he realized as the bed frame groaned in protest.

"Those were Josette's earrings," snarled Barnabas. The face was so close to his own, he could see the veins in the other man's eyes, could see the glitter of anger and the threat of more danger.

"Yeah, but she wasn't wearin' 'em no more, hey, please, they was just going to waste in that box, and they look so good on Maggie, don't they?"

He swallowed as Barnabas' whole face changed and darkened and had no time to duck as one hand let go of his shirt to slam against his face.

"You gave Josette's earrings to that common girl, that slut?"

The protest came unbidden, around a swallow of blood that had suddenly filled his mouth. "Hey, she is not!"

With one hand Barnabas thunked Willie's head against the plaster and with the other he hit him hard, enough to knock the side of his face against the wall.

"She is common," asserted Barnabas, marking this with another blow, "and she is a slut, and she's unworthy of those earrings!"

Blood bubbled from his nose now, and as he looked at Barnabas, he wondered where the man he knew had gone. Surely he was around here somewhere, surely this impostor would go away soon.

"So why don't you ask her for 'em back?"

The Barnabas he knew, the real Barnabas would have taken this very wise and clever suggestion into consideration, and perhaps taken him up on it. But to this Barnabas, the idea of taking a gift back from anyone, let alone someone he considered a slut, was unthinkable. And the real Barnabas, his friend, would not have slammed his head into the wall another time and then again until he was seeing black stars in a halo around Barnabas' head. The real Barnabas would not have then lifted up the belt and as Willie fell back onto the bed proceeded to beat him with it until he was unconscious. But as the black cloak, somehow not as comforting as the white shroud he fondly remembered, overtook him, he knew that this was not his friend. This was not the Barnabas he knew. The Barnabas he knew had gone away for a time, and perhaps would be back tomorrow.

And in the meantime, his last thought, in the meantime, he would hide his belt in the bottom drawer. This Barnabas would never find it there.

~The End~

**Author's Note:**

> This is an early story about Willie, when, for some reason, I determined that a) I would write about him after he came out of the loony bin and b) that he was in love with Maggie Evans. Willie really is in a sorry state, and Barn almost can't bear to beat him. But he does, oh, yes, he does.
> 
> ***
> 
> Hey there, thanks for reading my fan fiction! Because I love writing so much, I've turned my attention to writing m/m historical romances. My goal is to make a living by my writing, so if you'd like to give my books a try, you can [ click the link to visit my website](http://www.christinaepilz.com/) and find out more.


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